Might As Well Paint

Last Saturday, I visited Defender's Park in Pasadena.  It's a small park with some significant monuments, but I believe its main purpose is access to the Colorado Bridge.  Because the mountains looked beautiful, and not because I'm obstinate, I painted with my back to the bridge.  There is a sign posted at the bridge to discourage suicide, "there is hope."  My back was to the sign as well, but not metaphorically or anything.  I started painting relatively early and relatively small, which afforded me some extra time to do little people studies.  They include a couple of painters and some unsuspecting walkers.  

Here is the view that is behind you if you are driving west on the Colorado Bridge or sitting and painting it at street level.

Heights

This is a painting of a bit of Angelino Heights.  Although I did not find quite the right view of Bob's Market, which is one of my very favorite commercial buildings, it was still an entirely pleasing day of painting.  I was introduced to the Angelino Heights neighborhood in the 1980s, mostly because of its proximity to Matsu, a well-loved but now-gone Japanese restaurant.  The neighborhood is giant visual feast of residences from in and around the Victorian era.  Uncharacteristically, but not too badly, I included a person in the painting.  It isn't a fellow-painter or anybody else I know.   

I don't think about it very often, but I suppose this is my blog, and I'm free to write pretty much anything I want here.  There are probably bounds of good taste and decency, but I doubt that I will cross them.

I wanted to share some thoughts about education.  Disclosure: I'm not an education professional, although I did spend a year as a substitute for the Pasadena Unified School District. I went to school and my children went to school too.  So I have thoughts.  I'm puzzled that education and the work of teachers is such a big political issue.  In so many other fields - public health, criminal justice, air traffic control, nuclear regulation, to name a few - the politicians and citizens trust the trained professionals to understand the work and recommend the policies.  But it seems like everybody knows how teaching ought to be done.  Probably because, like me, they went to school.

Then there is this pervasive opinion that teacher's unions are the cause of  everything wrong with education - that teacher's unions want to protect the jobs of dangerously bad instructors.  Seriously?  How on earth is it in the best interests of the unions to protect the jobs of dangerously bad workers?  Doesn't that drag the stock of the other workers down?  And make their jobs much harder?  It's true that contracts give teachers a certain amount of job security, but isn't job security generally a good thing?  I wonder if the jobs of dangerously bad teachers aren't more likely to be protected by administrators who don't want to admit that they have dangerously bad teachers and deal with them.  Consider this: Boy Scout leaders don't have unions.

I easily grasp why teachers wouldn't want to be evaluated based on students test scores.  That would be like evaluating hair stylists on the basis of beauty pageant results.  To be sure, their work is relevant to the results, but nowhere near the biggest factor.  Yet I kind of like the idea of evaluating teachers somehow.  It seems like good teachers ought to be recognized, and struggling teachers ought to be helped and corrected.  Here's what I think.  I think there should be security cameras and monitors in all the classrooms.  Teachers might balk at first.  I would.  It would seem like an intrusion, but seriously, there aren't very many working people who spend 99 percent of their work day unsupervised.  Administrators could actually watch the teachers teach under all conditions; they could see if the class was engaged and under control.  The monitors would also lend some extra safety and security to schools.  Intruders and other dangerous situations could be detected immediately, and appropriate assistance could be dispatched to classrooms.

I also think there ought to be a lot more art education.  It has been shown that music and visual art education improves students' performance in all areas.  Are history and geometry more important  than than drawing and instrumental music?  What do you think?

Paparazza

My car was stopped at the rail crossing at California just west of Arroyo Parkway where there is a car wash. I think these people are waiting for their cars to be washed. The man sits. The woman has picked up a few things she needed at Trader Joe's. I like the way the light hit the woman. I like her efficiency and her cool boots. I like how you can barely see the child, and yet you know she is an adorable little girl, sprite-like in her own boots. Although you can see the man's face (not too well painted), he is less interesting because he is just sitting and the light isn't shining on him.

I painted this for the Calypso Moon Artist Movement challenge,Painting History,and I'm glad I did. Happy Thanksgiving, painters and pilgrims.